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Julie and Duane Schiedler show one of their chicken coops, among the products the couple began making after the sagging economy slowed their cabinet shop business, forcing them to diversify. The coops have proved a welcome hit.
Andrew Moore / The Bulletin
Chicken tractors
and other ways one Bend business is creating new revenue in a recession
By Andrew Moore / The Bulletin
Published: June 19. 2009 4:00AM PSTBack in the early ’80s, when the nation was gripped by recession, Duane Schiedler and his wife, Julie, retooled their cabinet shop to churn out geodesic-dome greenhouses.
Fast forward more than two decades and the Schiedlers are at it again, only this time they’ve expanded. In addition to compact greenhouses (they’ve ditched the dome design), the couple also are building and selling compost bins, raised planting bed systems and custom chicken coops they like to refer to as “victory coops,” a play on the victory gardens promoted during World War II to ease food rationing.
What started as a sideline business last fall has since become a full-fledged business — called Celebrate the Season — that also includes a gardening store. A grand opening will be held at the Bend store — at 61515 American Loop — from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday.
“Because of the current market, we’ve been tinkering with outside-the-box ideas, and we started this,” said Duane Schiedler. “We think we can help people, building something people need that can save them money.”
The Schiedlers’ custom cabinet shop, The Wood Awakening, has been operating in Bend since 1975.
Like most local businesses connected to the real estate industry, business at the cabinet shop has slowed dramatically, Schiedler said. He even started making cutting and carving boards to help the business diversify.
When the economy took a further turn for the worse last fall, the Schiedlers decided to build greenhouses again. They are made of hickory and cedar with double-ply plastic PVC sheet glazing and measure 4 feet tall by 8 feet long. They sell for $450.
“When your neighbors are still dusting off snow in March, you can be picking herbs with these,” Schiedler said, noting that while more expensive than a mass-produced greenhouse, his tend to last longer and can be delivered for free.
A green thumb who’s won the award for tallest sunflower at the Deschutes County Fair for the last six years, Schiedler also likes to talk about how his greenhouses can help protect Central Oregon gardens from the predictable early-summer hailstorms.
On a roughly 1,000-square-foot garden patch the Schiedlers keep on the lot of their cabinet shop, Schiedler likes to show off rows of stunted, ragged-looking corn that took a beating during the most recent hailstorm and compare the stalks with vibrant, green corn plants that sat protected in one of his greenhouses.
But one of the Schiedlers’ biggest hits with their new business is the chicken coops. Each coop is a $150 box that resembles a miniature house, but with nesting boxes, a chicken-wire bound basement and on some variations, exterior handles that enable the coop to be moved to different parts of the yard.
As the chickens defecate, scratch and peck at the ground underneath the coop, they fertilize it and turn the ground over, readying it for planting, said Duane. Duane calls the coop with handles a “chicken tractor.”
Chickens aren’t just for farms, say the Schiedlers. Indeed, in Bend, the city allows up to four chickens on residential lots as small as 6,000 square feet, with the purchase of a $104 permit. The price rises to $114 on July 1.
Duane said interested individuals also should check with their homeowners associations to see if any other rules apply.
More Central Oregonians seem to be raising their own chickens. At Country Feed & Pet Supply, which is across from the Schiedlers’ business, owner Nancy Hermanns said she expects that by the end of the month, she’ll have sold 6,000 chicks since Jan. 1. In past years, Hermanns said she considered herself lucky if she sold 2,000 in the same time frame.
“I think people are worried about their food sources, where their food’s coming from and want to do it on their own,” Hermanns said. “And the other thing is the economy. People think if they grow their own food they’ll save more money.”
Raising chickens, Hermanns doesn’t think people end up saving money due to the time and investment involved. But she thinks it’s worthwhile for people who value knowing their food source.
“You’re getting eggs where you know what the chickens are eating and where they live,” Hermanns said. “You know what’s going into your food.”
Andrew Moore can be reached at 541-617-7820 or at amoore@bendbulletin.com.
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